This past weekend, I made a cake with my son, who’s enjoying his first year in Boy Scouts. We got a delicious Dr. Pepper and cake mix recipe from Scoutmaster Cleary, and since it had several ingredients my son loved (including his favorite soda), it was easy to talk him into making it together. This was a dutch oven cake, but we made it at home in our oven, and while we made it we discussed how to make it in a dutch oven. It tasted so good!

But I had ulterior motives when I asked him to make it with me. Sure, I wanted a cake. I always want dessert! But more importantly I wanted to give him something that he could make on a troop campout.

As scout leaders, our boys will benefit if we teach them to cook. Each Cub rank has some kind of cooking requirement (Tiger electives 24 and 25; Wolf achievements 8c,d, and e; Bear achievement 9a-g; and Webelos Outdoorsman 8). We could easily dismiss that and say that “that could be done at home”, but we would miss teaching our boys an important campout and life skill – basic cooking.

There is an old cliche that Boy Scouts survive on ramen noodles and cereal on a campout. I don’t know if this is true or not. But a boy that knows some basic recipes, knows how to use a camp stove, and knows how to use a dutch oven is going to have a great campout.

And these lessons can begin at the Cub Scout level. Start with the cooking requirements in the Cub books. Or have a camping cooking meeting that doesn’t necessarily meet a Cub requirement. Or have a den picnic in a park, and make something easy and hot for lunch. And when you are Webelos, take the boys and their parents on a den campout, and pull the boys aside as their own patrol to make their meals. When these boys enter boy scouts they might not be cooking experts, but they will bring an important skill to their patrols on a campout.

Now my son has a new tool in his camping “tool kit”. He has a delicious, easy to make dutch oven cake. So when he and his patrol plans their next campout, and someone suggests bringing cookies for a dessert, he has something to up the ante and help make a memorable campout.

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And don’t forget to click on the “Scouting Outdoors” page for some dutch oven helps and recipes: